Some years ago, in an article called The status of linguistics as a science (Lg. 5.207–14 [1929]), Edward Sapir made an interesting statement describing language in part as ‘a guide to “social reality”’. The statement goes on to say (209):

Though language is not ordinarily thought of as of essential interest to the students of social science, it powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and processes. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.

The weak preterit presents one of the most difficult problems in Germanic linguistics. Many investigators have applied themselves to the solution of the problem, and the number of publications occupied with this question is so great that a perspective can hardly be gained. The varied attempts at a solution, many quite recent, are proof that the much-discussed question has lost none of its appeal. The problem offers a recurring challenge to research, since it cannot yet be considered finally solved.

[Almost every Romance language has a number of verbs in -ir(e), in which some endings are taken from the Latin inchoatives. This conjugation had its origin in a blending of the old inchoative verbs in -ēscō with certain denominative verbs of the 4th conjugation (not with verbs of state in -ēre). The ēscō-forms came to be regarded as personal endings of denominative verbs. Hence -īscō, a collateral form of -ēscō, was preferred by a large section of the Latin-speaking territory, giving rise to a type -īscō -īre in some of the Romance languages.]

In his valuable article on the Indo-European vowels in Albanian (Lg. 26.379–88), Stuart A. Mann recommends a principle of etymological method that is characterized by admirable, not to say Utopian, rigor. He considers ‘complete correspondence of whole words’ (379) to be the only sure evidence on which to base etymology, and regards this as an improvement upon ‘continental neo-grammarian practice’ (379 fn. 2). As an antidote to the reckless overworking of the theory of Wurzelerweiterung, Mann's principle is certainly to be hailed. It would, of course, result in wholesale pruning of our etymological dictionaries, which may or may not be desirable. Would, for instance, Welsh ebol ‘colt’ < have to be rejected as a cognate of OLat. equos ‘horse’, since complete correspondence is lacking and a simplex *eb < * cannot be attested? Or would Mann apply his principle in its strictest form only to such procedures as the reconstruction of the original vocalic system of a language, such as he attempts in his article? In the latter event, his conservatism doubtless guarantees a certain dependability of results. But once the principle of whole-word correspondence is imposed, it goes without saying that the words used in establishing correspondences must themselves be verified philologically and not merely lexicographically. The bane of Celtic linguistics has been a flair, at certain periods, for creative lexicography. The Welsh Dictionary (1803) of the notorious William Owen Pughe, for instance, contains—not the extant Welsh vocabulary of his day, although some of that was inevitably incorporated in the work— but, in large measure, fictitious words which are the author's contribution to his mother tongue. Continental scholarship and even native authorities, relying on the work of Pughe and his followers, proceeded to draw etymological and phonological conclusions that had no basis in linguistic fact, being derived from Pughe's ghost words. Recent Welsh lexicographical practice has fortunately succeeded in getting rid of most of these phantoms. As a matter of fact, predeeessors of Pughe were often far less fantastic than he; as early as 1632 John Davies provided an extremely reliable work (except for its etymologies), based on a careful analysis of the vocabulary of Welsh literature.